At
midday on
9 July each year Baha’is the world over read special prayers in
remembrance of the death of one of the founders of the religion. Mirza
Ali Muhammad, who assumed the title of the Bab (‘Gate’), was
an inspirational social and religious reformer in 19th century Persia.
Predicting the coming of a new age of human development, he gained considerable
following. However his message alarmed the conservative religious establishment,
and he was accused of being a heretic and a dangerous rebel: he was arrested,
and his execution ordered.

On
9 July 1850 the sentence was carried out in the courtyard of the Tabriz
army barracks. Thousands of onlookers crowded the rooftops of the barracks
and houses overlooking the square. The Bab and a young follower were suspended
by ropes against a wall, and a regiment of 750 Armenian soldiers opened
fire, creating such a cloud of smoke and dust that the entire yard was
obscured.

Sir
Justin Shiel, Queen Victoria’s envoy in Tehran, wrote: “When
the smoke and dust cleared away after the volley, Bab was not to be seen,
and the populace proclaimed that he had ascended to the skies.”
Apparently during the shooting the ropes restraining him and his companion
had broken and they had escaped; when they were subsequently found and
returned to the square, the Armenian soldiers refused to fire again, and
had to be replaced by a contingent of Muslim soldiers.

Following
the execution the bodies were thrown into a moat outside the twon, where
they were rescued by the Bab’s followers, eventually to be buried
on Mount Carmel in Israel, in a shrine that is now a place of pilgrimage
for Baha’is.